temptation for them. Nature will not suffer us to keep them in absolute subjection; neither will she bear us harmless if we blindly give ourselves up to their control. Where, in this case, is the middle way? I cannot tell: and if I could, of what benefit would it be? Middle ways are difficult to keep; they are ways upon which neither physicians nor patients are commonly found.

THE TREASURES OF THE DEEP.

WHAT hid'st thou in thy treasure-caves and cells?
Thou hollow-sounding and mysterious Main!
-Pale glistening pearls, and rainbow-colour'd shells,
Bright things which gleam unreck'd of, and in vain.
-Keep, keep thy riches, melancholy sea!

We ask not such from thee.

Yet more, the Depths have more !-What wealth untold
Far down, and shining through their stillness lies!
Thou hast the starry gems, the burning gold,

Won from ten thousand royal Argosies.

-Sweep o'er thy spoils, thou wild and wrathful Main !
Earth claims not these again!

Yet more, the Depths have more!-Thy waves have roll'd
Above the cities of a world gone by!

Sand hath fill'd up the palaces of old,

Sea-weed o'ergrown the halls of revelry!

-Dash o'er them, Ocean! in thy scornful play,
Man yields them to decay!

Yet more! the Billows and the Depths have more!
High hearts and brave are gather'd to thy breast!
They hear not now the booming waters roar,
The battle-thunders will not break their rest.
-Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave-
Give back the true and brave!

Give back the lost and lovely!-those for whom
The place was kept at board and hearth so long;
The prayer went up through midnight's breathless gloom,
And the vain yearning woke 'midst festal song!
Hold fast thy buried isles, thy towers o'erthrown,
-But all is not thine own!

To thee the love of woman hath gone down,

Dark flow thy tides o'er manhood's noble head,
O'er youth's bright locks and beauty's flowery crown;
-Yet must thou hear a voice-Restore the dead!
Earth shall reclaim her precious things from thee,
-Restore the Dead, thou Sea!

THE WINDS.-A DIALOGUE.

Spirit 1.-HARK!-what trampling sound is nigh,—

Sp. 2.

Sp. 3.

Sp. 1.

Sp. 2.

Magic.

'Tis above us,-in the sky ?—

The howling winds are in the air:

Shall we call them, Master fair?

How they sigh, and how they rave!—
One is sweeping o'er the wave

Loaden like a thunder-cloud:
On his breast his head is bow'd-
Ha! I see his hideous stare

Piercing through his stormy hair:
Lightnings round his loins are flung,
Forked like the serpent's tongue!
Shall we call them, Master dear?
Give thy word!

Appear! appear

Will ye not speak?My ears are stunn'd by noises,
Which rush against them, and my soul is toss'd
As in a whirlwind of tempestuous dreams.
Where do ye loiter?-Oh! blow on, blow on:
I live in this abundant harmony.

Now would I float upon the riotous storm,
Zephyr-like, leaf-like, and be borne far off
To giant islands,—to bright jutting crags,
Cold as December, or where mountains lift
Their gleaming shoulders in the Boreal light.
Now let me roll on clouds or sleep in air,
Or from Atlantic billows touch the moon-
Cradle me-rock me-and ye, brooding Winds!
Mutter your spells from shore to echoing shore.-
Oh! my soul's wilder than the music.-Hark!-

Look, where that bright-wing'd snake the Lightning comes
Tearing the sky!-Fain would I cling unto him,
And dart from cloud to cloud,—from earth to air,-
From air to heaven, and in that topmost road

Whence Phaeton tumbled with his blazing car

And scorch'd the Padus, move like a Sun.-Hark! hark!
The sounds are nearer: once more, Spirits, appear!

Winds. (above)-We are here :-we are here.

1st W.

2nd W.

3rd W.

4th W.

1st W.

2nd W.

I have come on the ice-blast.

And I on the hot Simoom.

And I have brought blight from a Tartar night.
And I am sick from the tomb:

For I was bred

On a fainting morn,

Where the Ague and yellow Plague are born,

Where the panther springs,

And the vampire stings,

And the serpent rattles his scaly rings.

Look! This is a bolt which Hecla threw,

When her white heart crack'd in the burning blue :
The Spirits that lay on her blazing snows
Were shook from their ages of cold repose,
And awoke with their mother's shrieking throes.
And, see, what I gather'd when Nile was bare!
It lay on a crocodile's forehead square,
Like a soul near the jaws of the gaping Hell,
But I saw it, and liked its lustre well,

And I swore by the power

Of that dark hour

3d. W.

Spirit.
3rd W.

Magic.

But it hath died,

In its first fresh crimson pride.—
Like the starry light that streams,
On the poet's figured dreams,
It but seems :-

Like the beauty that betrays
Trusting passion with its gaze,—
Like the meteor eyes that lie
On the forehead of the sky,-
Like the madman's phantom crown,→
Like the flushing virgin's frown,—
It but seems.

Thou art the best of all--and worst;
For never since the clay was cursed
With knowledge, and an ample scope
To grieve in, has the masquer Hope
Been match'd, when in his fair false way
He strives to lure a soul away.

ÆOLICUS.

BRITISH GALLERIES OF ART.NO. VII.

Lord Egremont's Gallery at Petworth.

To those who possess the happy skill of extracting delight from that which, as yet, is but an imagination to them-who have faith enough to believe before they see, as well as after-there are few things more pleasant than to travel through the whole length of a long summer's day,

"From morn to noon, from noon to dewy eve,"

with the certainty constantly present to them, of seeing, at the end of their journey, some object, or set of objects, the sight of which they have been looking forward to and reckoning upon as one of the ends for which they were living in the past, and which, when they have thus appropriated it, is to become one of the means by which they are to live in the future. A feeling of this kind turns every thing we see into beauty, like the imagination of the youth who is journeying towards his mistress-in Mr. Crabbe's tale of "The Lover's Journey ;" and that which it finds beautiful, it contributes not only to heighten and multiply, but to impress upon the senses, and through them on the memory, in a way that nothing else can-not even the most strenuous and predetermined efforts of the will. To those who have not already seen the princely domain of the Earl of Egremont at Petworth, I would fain convey such a notion of it, that till they set out to visit it for themselves, it may thus dwell in the distance before them, like a bright spot in the land of promise; secure that, when they do visit it, I shall not, in so

doing, have anticipated the impressions they will receive from it, but only have prepared the way for those impressions, and thus rendered their effect more certain and more lasting. And yet it is presumptuous in me to reckon on being able to accomplish this. The utmost I can hope to do is to furnish another " Yarrow unvisited" to those who will never see Petworth but, in hope and intention;—that is to say, those who hope to see it, without intending; and those who intend to see it every summer, till the winter comes, when it is too late.

And here let me premise, that, as the beauties of Nature more than divide the palm of admiration with those of Art, on this enchanting spot, it is but fair that they should meet with their due share of notice in this description. The truth is, that the latter have as much fallen short of the expectation I had previously formed respecting them, as the former have surpassed it; and I propose to let the one make up for the deficiency of the other, to the reader, as it has done to me.

In an obscure part of Sussex, on the Chichester road, about fifty miles distant from London, stands the most uncouth and unsightly of villages, named Petworth; consisting of dwellings (houses, the inhabitants probably call them)-seeming to have been constructed in every age since the invention of the art, except the civilized ones; and apparently adapted to every purpose but the one they are intended for; the largest looking like prisons for the confinement of malefactorsthe smallest like sheds for the shelter of animals—and all seeming to have been contrived and arranged for the express purpose of shutting out or destroying all ideas connected with and dependent on the beauties of external nature and "the country"-all closely and confusedly huddled together, as if to prevent the intrusion of any thing in the shape of a tree or a patch of grass, and barely room enough left between them for the passers-by to wind their way along.

Let the reader fancy himself placed over-night in the midst of this barbarous and outlandish spot-at the Swan Inn, perchance-having arrived there too late to judge of the kind of place he is in, and fancying that, as he has been travelling all day from London, he must by this time be in the country. When he wakes in the morning, and finds himself in the kind of spot I have described, his first impulse, of course, will be to wander forth in search of something different from what he sees about him; and, nothing natural or pleasant presenting itself to him spontaneously as if to court his admiration, he will probably at once inquire "the way to the Park Gate ?" It is a chance if he finds any one to answer his question civilly or intelligibly; for the inhabitants of a village like this are generally as rude and uncouth as their houses, and imagine that any one who does not know "the way to the Park Gate," (which they know so well) must be little better than a natural. But when he does find the object of his search, let him pause for a moment before he enters, and recall to his mind the different objects that he has just been winding his way among, and the general scene that he is leaving-thus turning them to the only good they are susceptible of, by unconsciously making them serve as a foil and a contrast to what he is presently to behold. On entering the gate nearest to the back of the Swan Inn, I need not call upon him to dismiss from his mind all memory of that which has just been occupying it; for the scene of enchantment and beauty that will now

burst upon his delighted senses is not of a nature to permit any thing else to interfere with it ;-like a lovely and beloved bride on her bridal day, it must and will hold and fix, not only his feelings and affections, but his fancy-his imagination-his whole soul undividedly. Oh! there is a set of chords in the human mind which cannot choose but vibrate and respond to the impressions which come to them from external nature—which cannot choose but do this independently of all previous knowledge, of all habit, of all association! Take a savage from his native spot-who has never seen any thing but his own cabin, the glen in which it stands, the mountain stream where he slakes his thirst, and the eternal woods through which he pursues his prey; and place him in the presence of such a scene as that which will greet the spectator when he has entered a few paces within the walls of Petworth Park; and if he be not moved, rapt, and inspired with feelings of delight, almost equivalent to in degree, and resembling in kind, those instinctive ones which would come upon him at the first sight of a beautiful female of his own species, then there is no truth in the knowledge which comes to us by impulse, and nothing but experience can be trusted and believed. I speak, however, of a natural savage, not one who has been made such by society and custom. I can easily conceive, for example, that half the boors and clowns in Petworth itself pass daily through the scene I am about to describe, without ever discovering that it differs in any thing from the ploughed field where they are going to work, or the dusty road that runs through a corner of their village.

Let the spectator enter the park from the gate I have mentioned above, and turning to his right hand on entering, and passing under a few limes irregularly planted, he will emerge (still keeping to his right hand) in front of the mansion-house belonging to this beautiful domain, It is a building of great extent, perfectly uniform, and of singular plainness, without portico, columns, wings, ballustrades, towers, spires, domes, or any thing that can be supposed to have been placed about it for mere ornament-nothing that makes any pretension to vie in attraction with the scene of beauty in the midst of which it stands. On the contrary, it seems placed there, not to rival, still less to overlook or command that scene-but merely to complete and form a consistent part of it. Or, perhaps, it is still better adapted to convey to one the idea of a perpetual spectator fixed for ever to the spot, in silent admiration of a scene that, but for some one thus to admire it, would not be quite complete. Without going into a particular description of this nobly simple structure, but merely adding that its general character, and the appearances it has borrowed from time and the elements, bespeak it to be neither ancient nor modern, but holding a station exactly between the two,-without the unwieldy grandeur of the one, or the fantastical common-place of the other, let us turn at once to the lovely scene on which it looks forth. Standing immediately in front of the mansion, a level lawn extends before you to a very considerable distance in the centre, and bounded there by a bright water stretching irregularly all across; and on the right, by a rich sweep of rising ground, reaching nearly to the mansion itself, and crowned by a dark grove of beeches and chesnut-trees. From the edges of this water on either side, and from small islands within it, rise groups of trees, in twos, threes, and fours, and here and there a single one-all